The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin by Jan van Eyck

The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin by Jan van Eyck

The world through three arches

Nicolas Rolin, Chancellor of Burgundy and one of the richest men in Europe, kneels at the left in a brocade of gold; the Virgin sits at the right in red, and the Child on her knee blesses him while an angel lowers a crown. Between them, through three arches, is a whole world: a garden, a river with a bridge, a city with its churches and hills, painted so finely that people have counted the figures on the bridge. Two small men lean over the parapet with their backs to us, looking at it too.

Van Eyck's mastery of oil paint — the glaze on the tiles, the light in the crown — is the reason the picture looks as if it were painted last week.

Autun to the Louvre

Rolin commissioned it for his parish church in Autun, his home town, Notre-Dame-du-Châtel, where it hung until the church burned in 1793. After a period in Autun Cathedral it went to the Louvre at the start of the nineteenth century.

About this print

Made from a photograph of the panel, 8,190 pixels tall, in its near-square format.

Sources: Musée du Louvre, INV 1271 · Wikidata Q1516449 · Wikimedia Commons